Thomas, the well-known author of Anastasius, or Memoirs of a Modern Greek, was descended of an ancient Scottish family, and was one of three brothers who had attained to great wealth and eminence as merchants in Amsterdam. In early manhood he travelled extensively in Europe, Asia, and Africa, and on settling down in London, became known as a munificent patron of art in all its branches. His first published work was a volume on Household Furniture and Decorations, which gave occasion to Sidney Smith to call its author "the gentleman of Sphinxes—the Oedipus of coal-boxes—he who meditated on muffin-cases, and planned pokers"—but which, despite the ridicule of the Edinburgh and other reviews, effected a great reform in the style of domestic arrangements in English houses. This book appeared in 1805, and four years later it was followed up by a sumptuous work on the Costume of the Ancients, and in 1812, by the no less splendid Designs of Modern Costumes. His great work, however, was his Anastasius. The hero of this work is a sort of Oriental Gil Blas, who is tossed about through all the conditions of life, and from being a beggar in the streets of Constantinople, rises to be an officer of distinction under a Bey of Egypt. The strange scenes through which he passes in this motley career are described with a force and eloquence which, as Sidney Smith said, would not disgrace the pen of Tacitus, and with a depth of feeling and a vigour of imagination worthy of Lord Byron, to whom, indeed, the novel, on its first appearance, was very generally attributed.

Turning from fiction to metaphysics, Hope next wrote an elaborate work on the Origin and Prospects of Man, which, however, was not published until after his death. Amid much that is paradoxical, obscure, and fanciful, this work contains many ingenious views, some deep thinking, and occasional passages of striking eloquence. A parallel, in many respects true and correct, has been drawn between the author of Vathek and the author of Anastasius.

Hope died February 3, 1831.

Hope, Thomas Charles, M.D., the eminent professor of chemistry for more than half a century in the universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh, was the third son of Dr John Hope, the first regius professor of botany in Edinburgh. Thomas Charles Hope was born on 21st July 1766, and died on 13th June 1844.

As might be expected, he early imbibed a predilection for botany, and had made such proficiency in that study that he aspired to obtain that chair on the death of his father in 1786. Having at the same time studied chemistry under the celebrated Dr Black, he applied himself with great industry to that science, which became his favourite pursuit; and when the chemical chair in the University of Glasgow became vacant, on the death of Dr Irvine in 1787, Hope was chosen as his successor. Aware of what might be required from the successor to the several eminent men who had preceded him in that appointment, viz., Cullen, Black, Robison, and Irvine, the young professor was stimulated to increased exertion, and soon became a favourite teacher of chemical science.

When Hope commenced his chemical prelections, the doctrines of the Stahlian school were universally received and taught. But in 1787 Sir James Hall returned from Paris to Scotland, and soon convinced Hope of the vast superiority of the Lavoisierian theory of combustion and oxygenation to the hypothesis of phlogiston. He became a convert to the new doctrines; and next winter zealously taught them in his class.

In 1783 Dr Hope became a member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and in the summer of that year paid a visit to Paris, where he was received with marked attention by Lavoisier and Berthollet,—an honour which he ascribed to his having been a pupil of Black, but which probably was no less owing to his having been introduced as the first British chemist who had publicly taught the new French chemical philosophy.

With the view of becoming a practical physician, Dr Hope had for two years, along with his chemical class, assisted his uncle, Professor Stevenson, in teaching the practice of medicine in the University of Glasgow; and, on the death of that uncle, succeeded him in that office, when he resigned the chair of chemistry. Yet he continued his chemical studies in private; and it was during this period that he made his principal discovery, the presence of a new earth in a mineral which had been confounded with barites. The mineral was found in strontian lead-mines, in Argyllshire, from which circumstance Hope named this earth strontite. In this masterly analysis he pointed out the chemical characters that distinguish the two earths, and laid the results before the Royal Society of his native city in 1795, which established his reputation as an expert analytic chemist. This discovery has been attributed to several other persons, but the only one whose pretensions are deserving of notice is Kluproth, who, in the journal Chemische Annalen for 1793-94, pointed out the distinction between the minerals strontianite and wilhelmitie. Yet though Hope's experiments precede those of Kluproth, both may be considered as original investigators of this earthy body.

The success and popularity of Hope's teaching at Glasgow suggested in 1795 to Dr Black, then in declining health, the advantage of obtaining his assistance; and, with the consent of the patrons of the university, Black made him the offer of becoming his assistant and successor in the chemical chair. It was accepted by Dr Hope, who resigned his prospects in Glasgow, and came to reside in Edinburgh. For two years he assisted Dr Black in the duties of the chair, but from 1798 the whole task devolved on Dr Hope. He soon became sole professor, and continued to fulfil the important duties of the chair till the end of the session of 1843.

Those who have had the advantage of being Hope's pupils have acknowledged the interest and instruction they derived from his able prelections, and very happily-executed experimental illustrations of the leading principles of chemistry. These qualities made him the most popular teacher of the science of his day in Britain; and his class-room for many years was constantly crowded to excess. The students in his course of 1799 were about 400, in 1813 they amounted to 500, and in 1827 to 575. During his career in Edinburgh his pupils amounted to 16,800.

Some persons have been surprised that Dr Hope, who had so auspiciously commenced his experimental career, should have apparently abandoned the pursuit of original research. But he considered his chief duty as a teacher to demand his utmost efforts to improve his lectures, and to devise the most characteristic and striking experimental illustrations, and in this he succeeded almost beyond any of his contemporaries. He did not, however, wholly give up original research; and some of his communications to the Royal Society are on important scientific questions. In 1804 he produced some ingenious experiments "On the Point of greatest Density of Water," which he fixed at temperature 39° 6' Fahr. (see Edin. Phil. Trans. for 1805). In the same paper he demonstrated the fallacy of Rumford's idea that fluids are absolute non-conductors of heat, which were afterwards confirmed by Thomson, Dalton, and Traill. Another curious paper appears in the Transactions in 1836—"Observations and Experiments on the Coloured and Colourable matters in Leaves and Flowers of Plants, upon which Acids and Alkalis act in producing red, yellow, or green colours." In the same year he read a paper "On the Chemical nomenclature of Inorganic Compounds." To Dr Hope, also, we owe a decided improvement on the Eudiometer of Scheele. The year before his death he communicated two papers to the Royal Society—1. "Observations on the flowers of Camellia japonica, Magnolia grandiflora, and Chrysanthemum leucanthemum," in each of which he discovered the existence of a distinct proximate principle to which he gave the names of camelline, magnoline, and chrysanthemine. 2. "An attempt to explain the Phenomena of the Freezing Cavern at Orenburg." Such are his chief contributions to science; but he considered teaching as the great business of his life, and to this he made it his duty to devote his chief energies. See Dr Traill's Memoir of Hope (Edin. Phil. Trans. xvi.).